[QuadList] Unknow mystery quad modules????--Sold totheonlybidder

[Don Norwood]

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Bill Carpenter to our group.  Bill had a long career with Ampex, and he is the person who correctly observed that the modules we have been discussing were not for the VPR-7900.  As an aside to that thread on the oldvtrs list, we got into a discussion about the TBC-790 and the AVR-2.  The post that I have copied below had so much interesting information in it, that I asked him if I could copy it here.  He agreed and has also joined our group, so we can look forward to more first-hand knowledge from Bill.  Welcome!

Here is a portion of what Bill had to say ................
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I moved on to the AVR-2 project inn the summer of 1972, during a move where I exchanged jobs with the product manager who was responsible for everything in the Quad product line except the AVR-1 & ACR-25.

He replaced me on the early helical products, for many reasons, mostly a personality problem with the director of the broadcast product management group.

So, I moved from a very bad condition, into a great new world of broadcast TV, which was
a great new world which would be a big learning experiencefor me.

I had design engineering experience on the helical products, and I knew quite a bit about Quads, but had never designed anything for them or even operated one.

So, I had the VR-1200B, VR-1200C, VR-3000, & the ADR-150 (quad high=speed contact duplicator) + quad upgrade stuff like Vel comps, and such, and a new project in engineering called Nova,(code name) which became the AVR-2 (in early 1974, like Feb/Mar) which was planned to replace the 1200 product line.

So we were selling about 50-70 quads, per quarter and that was my major day to day effort. I discussed every domestic sale with the salesman, and authorized every discount.

The Nova project was coming along quite well, the Project engineering manager left Ampex one month after I was on the project, to start the Catholic TV Network in Chicago. So it was goodbye to Charlie Crum and hello Glen Rose, who also designed the editor on the Nova.

There was very much concern in Rwc, related to what IVC was working on? 

They had Barry Guislinger, who taught me about video design in 1965, in Elk Grove, and could design anything in the video recording field. He personally created the IVC-9000

The concern was that they may have been building a quad "like" product with a base price of $35K.

So since the Nova project was in very good shape, and Maurice Lemoine was still fussing with the DTBC, but it worked well anytime it needed, so I authorized the prototype console to be finished and a full set of final trim to be produced.

The product was a tall console, with sides made out of a thick material like flakeboard and was black and gray. The sides were covered with a edge banding and were probably 10" wide from the top of the top plate to the bottom of the monitor bridge which was about 20" above the top plate.

I had it photographed and designed a one page brochure, and called it the VR-1400, and then we packed it and all the spares I could steal and had it crated. It marked as a "VPR-7953" and "Hold for Customs Clearance" stickers on all sides, and the name of the International Product Co-Ordinator and his phone number and it shipped on a seperate truck to the Bethesda Tape Warehouse.

If IVC had shown a low cost quad competitor, or RCA had showed a reaction product on the opening day of NAB 73, then I would have spent all Sunday, setting up the special sales meeting at 8pm, and then we would have moved the machine to a reserved spot on the show floor and Monday would have been one crazy day. 

The machine had the full DTBC, and every other feature of the AVR-2, except the unique console, usable with or without the monitor bridge and the three box concept. 

A by-product of this design, completed in August of 1973, was that the machine could be air shipped or shpped by common carrier anywhere in the world. This was a first for any quad (VR-3000 excepted) and proved very valuable in the future.

So, in summary, we never introduced a VR-1400, and we never introduced a quad product with the "mini-buffer", which was the engineering name, for what became the TBC-790 product.

But, poor RCA introduced the TR-600 at NAB 74 , which was aimed at the rumored $35K price point for IVC's product and even turned good RCA "meatball" lovers against them.

I could demo against them anywhere and have no doubt about winning.

We even thought that a southern broadcaster was going to force RCA, to finance a AVR-2 to keep him happy.

The RCA salesman came in a saw a demo AVR-2 running in his tape room and he almost died. 

The CE demoed the machine, and the RCA salesman dropped the price on three TR-600's, and told the CE " If you need a machine that will play any tape, any time, buy the damn AVR-2, but buy three TR-600's from me , because they are much cheaper"

So, that's a few stories of me and my Quad education, and the great AVR-2
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